The Altamont dollhouse.

Uh-oh. I accidentally looked at Facebook’s Marketplace again. There it was! A large dollhouse for very little money. It was unfinished, but it was listed as having all of the parts to finish the build. What could I do? I HAD to buy it.

This is what the Altamont is supposed to look like when it is finished. The house that I bought had some windows put in and no sidingyet. I have the siding, but I think that I will end up putting light limestone blocks on the exterior.

The interior is supposed to look like this once finished. Of, course, I will probably change that.

Poor Les. There goes another chunk of our living room real estate. Even so, he gracefully met me with his truck after work so that I could take this huge house home. It looks small in the pictures, but it measures 32″W x 27″D x 43″H . I even had to buy a little table to set it on. Luckily, our thrift store has fabulous prices on furniture so the table was only $5.99. Yeah, low prices are how I try to alleviate my guilt over spending. (grin)

I forgot to take a picture before I started to paint the shell. It was raw plywood when I bought it. The windows were already glued in as you see here.

I decided to prime the house with a coat of grey paint for the exterior and white for the interior. On my Victoria’s farmhouse, I painted as I went on the build. That was soooo much easier than having to reach into tight spots to paint this house.

All laid out for paint. You can see the top dome sitting off to the side there.

One thing that I’m learning is to turn the house over to paint the ceilings and the parts that are hard to reach. Just keep flipping it to get to interior cubbies. Also, I wish that they had not already glued in the windows. Painting the trim is so much easier too without the plastic panes glued into place.

You can tell by the upper right corner of this pic that the sun is already blasting down on me and it’s only 8:30am! I love the high desert of Northern Arizona, but the sun- arggg. Let’s just say that I am NOT a sun baby. Gotta paint FAST and get back inside.Dollhouse flipped onto it’s side so that I can paint the ceilings easier.

The other problem that I’m discovering during the paint process is that the original builder was not very careful with the angles and the lining up of joints. That part is a bummer, but I think that I can camouflage problem areas with trim. Ah well, live and learn. I’m glad to have this house, but I don’t think that I will ever buy an unfinished house again unless it is a kit that I am building myself from the ground up.

I need to post an update on the Victoria’s Farmhouse soon. It’s coming along nicely. The hold up is that I keep stopping to do little tutorials on accessories. It’s all too much fun. I’ll keep you posted on the build of this house too. In the meantime, I think that I may have developed a dollhouse hoarding problem. 😅

Thanks Claudia, but really, it’s my A.D.D. It drives Les nuts how I keep moving from one thing to another and then back again. While growing up, even my Mom felt the need to puzzle me out. She asked (seemingly out of the blue), “Are you afraid that if you finish one thing, there will be noting left to do?” Nope, I just like to do a LOT of things and I’m spastic about it. End of story. 😅😅😅

As there is that famous Auntie Mame quote: “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death”. I say, you go to it, the more the better. I love reading about your wide ranging interests and projects.